There is a phenomenon that occurs over and over again whenever I try to follow some mildly complicated procedure. I'll define "mildly complicated" as anything more difficult than tying a shoe. I guess it could be summarized as an application of Murphy's Law, which in its shortest form is "anything that can go wrong, will."
No matter how carefully I approach one of these tasks, no matter how painstakingly I double check every step, I inevitably screw up. Typically, I end up applying what I call the "permutation method" to these tasks, especially when they are related to software. The permutation method basically recognizes that the first time I attempt to do a task, I will be wrong, regardless of the amount of effort expended to ensure that I am not wrong. Thus, I no longer expend any effort trying to get it right the first time, figuring that I'll have to fix it one or several times anyway. In the worst case, I have to try every permutation of possibilities to get it right, sometimes more than once.
This shows up best when manipulating matrix transforms, which is a mathematical chore I have to perform occasionally at work to get objects to render in the correct positions and orientations in space within our program (which you can see here if you are interested). It doesn't matter how carefully I think about the order in which these matrices are multiplied, or which ones are inverted - I always get it wrong the first time, and generally the first several times. Maybe this is just a lack of brain power on my part. I personally think that it is the universe just having a laugh at my expense, but then again, I'm sort of paranoid that way.
The most recent incarnation of this principle was in the house wiring for my cable modem. I attempted to share the wires with the phone - the phone still worked, so I figured I was off to a good start. However, when I finally plugged a computer into the connection, I just got gobbledygook. Out came the cable tester (thanks, Lee). Despite my best intentions, I had shorted two wires at the phone block. I'll blame the poor lighting in the cellar. And then, after fixing that, it turned out that I had reversed one of the wire pairs somewhere else. Rather than find the reversal, I just said the hell with it and reversed the wires at the phone block. Now the wiring color scheme is a little messed up, but the computers are talking to each other just fine.
What's the point of all this? There is no point, really. I'm just expressing some frustration with the laws of thermodynamics, which basically point out that there are a hell of a lot more wrong ways to do something than right ways, so naturally it is difficult to do things right. Murphy's Law is a little different - I believe it claims that whenever two outcomes are equally likely, the worse one will occur. Try dropping a slice of bread with some jelly on it sometime. But don't try this experiment over a good rug.
You can respond to my ranting here.
Two wrongs don't make a rant.